


Past Is Prologue

by wily_one24



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Ladies Loving Ladies, Threesome - F/F/F, Tumblr Prompt, a whole bunch of hell yeah, alex and maggie find astra in cadmus, and alex thought coming to terms with being gay was confusing, and comfort, and lots and lots of smut, and then things really go to hell in a handbasket, expect angst, ha ha ha - Freeform, threesome prompt, why do you do this to me?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:44:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9196568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wily_one24/pseuds/wily_one24
Summary: “Danvers.” It’s groaned a little, both of them breathless under the weight of carrying the woman up a flight of stairs. “When we get inside, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on and why we just went AWOL.”To be fair, Alex is only surprised it has taken this long for Maggie to demand answers.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Timeline:** Set immediately at the end of 2.08 'Medusa'. 
> 
> **A/N:** I'm starting another fic. HAHAHAHHA. *hysterical sobbing* Prompted by tumblr user racethewind10 after reading my tags. Blame her. I do not accept any blame or repercussions from this. 
> 
> **A/N2:** It's starts off 'M' rated and mainly Alex/Maggie just now, but expect the rating to change to 'E' and include Astra pretty damn fast. Just not here in this chapter, as Astra is still healing/comatose and unless you want your smut to get REALLY FREAKY, we're not there yet. Soon, I promise. ;)
> 
> Enjoy. 
> 
> **added bit:** because it has been asked, my threesomes are generally equal threesomes, this won't be a Pairing A vs Pairing B stand off. Three ladies, interest and consent and activity for all three. All for one, one for all. And all that jazz. Alrighty then.

***

Alex is kissing Maggie. Maggie is kissing her. And, oh, _this_ is kissing. A far cry from the awkward sticky fumbling with men she has had to endure in the past. _This_ is addictive and sweet and worth getting lost in, worth cold pizza and warm beer left on the bench, this is Maggie with her hand on Alex's hip, fingers like a brand through her top. Alex, being not just _able_ to touch Maggie, but actually wanting to.

Intimacy was really just something to get through, something that she could take or leave as part of being in a relationship, but was rarely worth all the trouble she had seen other people go to.

She needs air, but she needs Maggie and...

Oh.

She probably really needs to get whoever is calling her phone.

“Someone better be dying.”

Alex would be embarrassed by the breathless, panting sound of her voice cracking over the phone, if she wasn't too busy trying to suck oxygen back into her body and trying not to notice the way Maggie is blinking, eyes glazed a little, and distractedly fixing a piece of her hair back behind her ear.

She almost wants to reach out and do it herself, stake a claim on the woman and her hair and who gets to touch it and, Jesus, Alex has never been this territorial or tactile before. Ever.

The thought dies a second later when Vasquez' voice on the other line finally breaks through her Maggie's lips induced haze. The information hits her right where it hurts and suddenly her stomach pulls in, core straight, free hand already reaching for her holster. Soft, smiling, _intimate_ Alex has turned, flipped straight into Agent Danvers.

And it's so complete and concrete that Maggie can tell without hearing a word.

She manages to say the words 'Cadmus' and 'Jeremiah' amongst the rest of the jumble as they both run down the stairs. It's enough for Maggie to understand the gist of what's going on, enough for Maggie to come along without question.

***

She hates this. She hates it in the way it always gives her the sort of thrill she’s sure she’s never supposed to feel; all sweat beaded and breathless, fingers stroking along the butt of her gun in readiness to strike. Those moments before a raid where the air around her crackles with electricity, waiting for the call to movement, where her energy feels reigned in like a horse pacing the gate and raring to go, muscles straining for the force. 

And now, the stakes are high, so high she feels frozen with a kind of terror that comes only few times in a lifetime. Unless, of course, your sister is Supergirl, then it’s perhaps a little more often than that. 

But this is her _father_ and high above the sky is Kara swooping in what would look like lazy circles if she didn’t know better, if they weren’t all braced for impact, and Kara scanning with x-ray vision for signs of life. 

Life. 

Please. Please please please pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. Life. 

And danger. But that’s not really in question, because this is their life and there is always danger. 

At an unseen signal from above, the radio crackles in her ear, tasking Alpha Team to move in and, goddamn right she is alpha. 

The rest is a blur of darkness and bursts of light and gunshots and the flash of fire headed their way, her voice shouts orders, her people follow, and she wonders when the sound of only one or two cries of pain become a win in her book. Pain hits her right side and left shoulder and she grits her teeth and pushes forward. 

Forward, against the call in her ear to retreat, because fuck that. 

~~Danvers! Retreat! That’s an order! ~~ 

Two pairs of eyes look to her for orders. She knows them, she’s their superior officer and she is directly responsible for their lives and the lives of their families and she knows they heard the retreat order. She knows they’re willing to follow her anyway. 

“Go.” It’s a jerk of her head to the way out and when they pause, she growls it. “Go!”

They leave. She doesn’t. 

And that’s the entire story of her life, isn’t it?

***

There’s blood in her eye and a headache threatening to disable her, but Alex has never known when to quit. 

“Alex!”

If she wasn’t a highly decorated agent trained in military strategies, she would have screamed at the hand on her arm. As it is, she does jump. Quite high, if she admits to the truth. It’s only a fraction of a second before she recognises Maggie and her absolutely furious face. 

“Get out of here, now! Let’s go!”

She shakes her head and even if Maggie knows the seriousness of the situation, which she absolutely does because she actually called her Alex and not Danvers, she should know Alex well enough to know she’s not leaving until she finds what she’s looking for or she’s carried out. 

So she merely nods her chin forward and begins to lead the way, secretly glad for the company. 

The building feels abandoned. In a bad way. 

Soulless and empty and a husk of what it was mere hours ago. 

Someone had prior warning, someone knew they were coming, someone set traps and lay in wait and maimed their troops. 

“Someone’s here.” She whispers. 

Because the building feels empty, but Alex can _sense_ it, like a feeling stronger than hope, than the fervent prayer she had walking in. It feels empty, but they are not alone. 

And the sad little figure huddled unconscious in the corner when they burst into the last room does not feel like victory to Alex. 

***

“We should call for help.”

Maggie says it into the silence. 

Alex can’t breathe. She has abandoned her gun and now her hand stays firmly clenched in her hair, a stress response she can’t seem to escape. Pulling on the ends of it, that stretch of her scalp, seems to root her to the ground, to reality in a way that looking at the blanked out face lying on the floor in front of them does not. 

“No.” It’s a whisper, a plea, a… some fucked up admission of guilt. “We’re not fucking calling anybody.”

Because she is _not_ there, a broken, beaten body lying on the floor in front of them both, there is no way Astra is alive, let alone in front of her. And if she is not there, that means she’s some fucked up apparition, some left-over subconscious manifesting into her consciousness and Alex cannot possibly be expected to carry a goddamn _guilt trip_ into the DEO and lay it on a table in front of Kara and preen _look what I brought you!_ like a puppy expecting a pat for the dead bird it brought home. 

“She’s bleeding!” Maggie hisses back. “She needs help.”

~~Agent Danvers, report! ~~ 

Alex rips the earpiece out. 

Kneeling seems like the thing to do, falling down to the ground so she can touch - her hand shakes as it reaches out, half expecting to be burnt or shocked or ripped off on contact - Astra’s shoulder and roll her over onto her back. The woman’s body slumps into an ungraceful roll and Alex has to bite her lip at the sight in front of her. 

Bloody face, bruised skin, swollen and split, she’s a mess and obviously powerless. 

“What did they do to her?”

Maggie is next to her, already assessing in terms of what needs to be done, but all Alex can hear is the accusation, because of all that Cadmus has done, surely it stems from the worst thing, that glowing green sword piercing Astra’s back. She can still hear the way Astra’s voice shook in tears as she’d said goodbye to Kara. 

How. How. The questions pound in her brain. How. Why. When. What. How. 

“Alex.” Maggie is looking at her now, face stern with the need for action, but deeply concerned. “We need to get her out of here.”

She can still feel Kara clinging to her, sobbing, after Astra’s death and again after she’d told her the truth about that night, and all the times after when the loss of her world, planet, family, her existence comes crashing down her. Alex can _feel_ Kara’s grief and she won’t, she refuses to do that to her again. 

They can’t go the DEO. Not until she knows what’s going on for sure. Not until she knows who their leak is. She can’t pick up that earpiece. 

“My place.” She decides. “We’ll take her there.”

***

“Danvers.” It’s groaned a little, both of them breathless under the weight of carrying the woman up a flight of stairs. “When we get inside, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on and why we just went AWOL.”

To be fair, Alex is only surprised it has taken this long for Maggie to demand answers. 

With Astra between them, one arm looped around each of their shoulders, they manage to half drag, half carry the woman to Alex’s bed. 

“I killed her.” 

Well, that is not what Alex means to say. 

It is obviously not what Maggie expects to hear. 

“She’s Kara’s Aunt.”

And when Maggie’s eyes narrow, her head quirking to the left, Alex bites her lip, because _that_ is not what she had meant to say either. Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t as…

“Kara’s Aunt? But not… yours?”

Alex winces and walks to her bathroom, collecting a cloth to dampen under the tap, hoping the distance and faux casualness of her answer will distract Maggie from her mistake. 

“Oh, well, she’s adopted. You know.”

“Uh huh.” It’s with a twist to her lips and calculating eyes that Maggie watches her begin to wash the blood from Astra’s face. “Alright, she’s adopted. And you killed her aunt, who has come back from the dead, and now you don’t want to take her back to the government facility that is going to… I am just guessing… storm this place with loaded weapons the longer we don’t contact them. And, honestly, Alex, she needs a doctor. Come on.”

It’s not her secret to tell, it’s never been her secret to tell. 

“She just needs sun.” 

There’s a pause where Alex doesn’t look up. She looks down at her hands that are brushing dirt and grime and blood away from a stern, yet peaceful in sleep, looking face. Alex hopes it’s just sleep, hopes that time away from that place and hours in the sun will fade the bruises and marks of horror that spill on the skin. That this will be like the may times she has waited as Kara laid unconscious on the sunbeds, feeling each and every second tick by in a glacial speed, fearing that she wouldn’t wake. But Kara woke, Kara always woke, and so she believes Astra will, too. 

Astra, who died at the end of Alex’s sword. Astra, whose body Kara sent into space with the proper rituals. Astra, who has somehow come back to Earth. Astra, who has gone from one war to another. 

“The sun.” Maggie eventually repeats. It’s not a question, not technically, but it needs an answer. 

Her chest expands when she breathes in, holds it, then lets it out. 

“Kryptonians get their powers from Earth’s yellow sun. It will heal her.”

It’s not her secret to tell, but Alex assumes Kara will forgive her. 

Under the circumstances. 

“I am with you, Danvers, you know I am, but you better start telling me some truth.”

***

They make the necessary calls. 

It’s not totally a lie, not all of it. She tells a near hysterical Kara that she’s with Maggie, that she got overwhelmed in the warehouse and needed some time. That’s why she broke protocol and ditched her commlink, that’s why she never checked in and let everyone know she was alive. Alex closes her eyes and hates herself just a little as she listens to Kara describe searching the site for her and finding nothing. 

And because Kara is Kara, she ends the call with a lilt to her voice and wishing Alex luck. 

The call to J’onn does not go so well. 

But they are free and Alex is left to avoid meeting Maggie’s eyes as they both watch and wait for the still woman in the bed to make some sign of life. 

Anything. 

***

There is no sun in the middle of the night and Alex wishes she had gotten herself a sunbed like she had always planned, for emergencies, just in case, but she hadn’t. So they have to wait until sunrise, for the moment the sky outside her window is inky black and it seems almost a betrayal for the night to be clear, for the stars to be shining. She knows how much Kara loves the stars, knows exactly why; all the time spent with this woman learning the galaxies of Krypton and beyond. 

Alex cannot stop herself running a hand through Astra’s hair, fingers pausing slightly in the white streak.

Her face has been cleaned, her body wiped down of all blood and grime, and now she lies as in stasis and Alex will never really get used to Kryptonians looking dead and giving her panic attacks until they wake up. She will also never understand her need to help this woman who should, by all rights, be her enemy. 

“You know, I have to ask.”

Maggie comes in with a beer and it’s frosty, Alex nods her thanks and wonders just when she’d put them in the fridge or if she has some sort of magical alcohol related powers and maybe, just maybe, Alex is at the point where she needs sleep. 

But Maggie’s voice is serious and when she looks up her eyes are, too. 

“I was there for the whole gay realisation thing, I know it’s recent, but… she’s not just Kara’s aunt, is she?”

Alex’s finger pauses mid caress through a lock of white hair. 

“What?”

“If I didn’t know better.” Maggie pauses to take a swallow, her eyes not leaving Alex at all. “I’d bet good money she was an ex.”

And Alex laughs, high and nervous, as she lets go of Astra’s hair and brings her hand in close to her chest. She’s not sure why it makes her feel guilty. 

“No, pfft. No.”

She wasn’t attracted to Astra, they were enemies, they fought, sure, they respected each other and their positions in the war they were in, they helped each other a time or two, she certainly never agreed to the treatment General Lane had ordered and she flinches every time she remembers the screams that followed her as she pulled Kara out of the room that day. They were reluctant allies, they talked, and sure sometimes they stood too close and Alex can remember the feel of breath on her face and striking grey eyes staring right into her and the sleek line of Astra’s body… 

And when had she paid that much attention to Astra’s body and lips and eyes?

“Oh.” She says, absently, a little stunned. 

“Oh!” Maggie repeats and laughs. Not a cruel laugh, a relaxed and amused and friendly one, tipping her beer bottle at Alex in acknowledgement. “Oh! Now, that’s a classic ‘oh’ if I’ve ever heard one.”

Alex quirks her head and Maggie grins. 

“The ‘Nope, I wasn’t attracted to my sixth grade teacher at all, she was just really smart and clever and nice and I sat in the front row and bought her apples and wrote her notes and tried to make her smile all day long, she was so nice and smart and pretty and smelled nice and… oh.’ _That_ ‘oh’.”

And yeah, Alex has to admit, it _is_ that kind of ‘oh. She’s had a few of them lately after re-examining her memories. She just never thought to think that hard on Astra and their interactions and, god, she was just blind. 

How could she have not known? How could she have just ignored the thrill of talking to this woman, being in the same room as her?

“It’s not…” She’s nervous and guilty and sorry and not even sure why, because she hasn’t done anything wrong, but she sure feels like she has. “It doesn’t mean…”

And Maggie lays a hand on her knee. 

“It’s cool, Danvers. I get it. We’ve all been there. Stop hyperventilating. Drink your beer.”

So Alex does. 

***

Alex desperately wants to move from beer to whisky.

But she capitulates to Maggie’s plea for coffee and waits for the kettle to boil as they stand in the kitchen. 

The entire night has been surreal and Alex is still trying to come to terms with the fact that Astra isn’t dead, even if she distinctly remembers killing her, even if she cannot get the force of Kara’s grief out of her mind, cannot parse the guilt of what must have happened to Astra in the hands of Cadmus, cannot even deal with the fact of her newly acknowledged attraction to the woman _with_ the woman she has just begun… 

What has she just begun with Maggie?

They have kissed, yes, and Alex knows what she wants. She wants to date Maggie and be with her in every sense, in all the senses she never got to enjoy when she felt she had to date men or live alone her entire life. But the most Maggie has said is she likes Alex too and wants to kiss her. 

Not to mention the fact that she seems fine with the fact Alex is attracted to a comatose woman on the bed in the other room. 

Surreal is really the only word Alex can think of and the only explanation of why she looks at Maggie idly fingering the mug in her hand and asks. 

“What are we?”

Alex wants to disappear right now. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that she had expressly told the DEO she wouldn’t be in under any circumstances that night, she would fake a call and scoot directly out of the apartment and away from Maggie’s look of shock. 

She wonders if the DEO has operations in Antarctica. 

Her face scrunches up and she her hands up and out in some sort of combination apologetic and pleading gesture. 

“You know what? Forget it, forget I said anything, it’s not important, I’m tired, I’m just gonna…”

But Maggie doesn’t let her run away and she shouldn’t be surprised. Sitting her cup down on the bench, Maggie slides her hands around Alex’s waist and tugs her forward. Alex sinks into the pull, into the feel of the body against hers. 

“I completely stand by my earlier comment.” Leaning up on her toes, Maggie kisses the side of her mouth. “I really want to kiss you, Alex, and I don’t plan on changing that anytime soon.”

A smile tugs the corners of her mouth, but it doesn’t stop her gesturing to the air around her. 

“But…”

“Your life is a shit show, Danvers.” A grin, dimples, Maggie shuts her up with another kiss. “And my life was getting too boring. Guess we both win.”

The kettle clicks off as there’s more kissing and neither of them are any closer to their coffee than they were before. 

***

The sun comes up in the morning and it’s no surprise, not really, it’s what she’s been waiting for and why she pulled the curtains open and made sure the bed had direct access to the oncoming light. 

But… 

She and Maggie are talking and making plans about what to do with their patient once they actually have to leave for work. They’re sitting on the bed again, and perhaps Astra will have definite words to say about their complacency and lack of formality with her person, but it’s been a long night, they’re tired, they haven’t slept and there’s no other furniture in her bedroom. 

Alex is a little reluctant to leave Astra to wake alone in a strange room and Maggie is in it for the long haul with Alex, so they’re both in the bedroom, sitting on opposite sides of the bed, as if the woman in the middle is not a potential threat capable of snapping both their spines the second she wakes. 

“I can do night shifts if you do day.”

DEO hours are less than predictable, but Alex has taken exactly zero days off since she started and she is thinking very seriously about claiming stress leave given the entire thing with Jeremiah and Cadmus and Kara. She knows J’onn would give her nights off, knows it will mean paperwork, but that they’ll manage without her and Maggie working nights wouldn’t be too much of a problem. 

There’s one important thing that all the amount of planning doesn’t cover. 

“Alex.” Of course Maggie is the one to bring it up. “What if she doesn’t _want_ to hang around here being nursed by us? We can’t exactly stop her.”

And the unsaid fact that Astra might just well be hostile and beat them both bloody without blinking. 

“She won’t hurt us.” Alex insists, as she’s been insisting all night. “I don’t know… I just… have this feeling. She’s worked with us before, I think she was almost coming to our side, before...”

Maggie looks like she’s trying to figure out a puzzle scrawled across Alex’s face. 

“Before you killed her, you mean? You understand how that might change her mind, right?”

Alex has been waiting for the sun to come up, for the express purpose of healing the Kryptonian in her bed, she has watched the night bleed away into the brightness of day, and yet… 

She is still taken by surprise at the flash of movement. 

Maggie cries out at the iron fist that closes around her wrist, her body bending down to the mattress to avoid snapping the bones in her forearm. Alex doesn’t waste time, leaning down face to face with the woman of her nightmares. 

“Astra.” She calls, only slightly urgently. “Astra, it’s Alex. Kara’s sister. You remember? Alexandra. You’re safe now. We got you out. Astra. It’s Alex. Agent Danvers.”

The eyes flick open and Alex watches as piercing grey flickers around the room before settling on her. Astra’s free hand comes up and waves just in front of her face, stopping just short of touching Alex’s cheek. 

“You…”

The voice creaks out before Astra’s eyes roll back into her head and her body goes limp, freeing Maggie. 

“Well.” Maggie shakes her wrist out, swivelling it in the joint a time or two. “At least we know she has her powers back.”

Alex looks at her. 

“No, she doesn’t.”

And Maggie’s eyes widen again. 

“Jesus, that’s without her strength? We’re screwed, Danvers. You better hope she’s on our side when she really wakes up.”

Alex can only nod. 

***

to be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Can super powered villains be trusted if they blink their sharp grey eyes and promise not to be naughty again?_
> 
> _Maggie can only hope._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Where the fuck is the smut, you guys? It's not fucking here, that's for sure. Sorry. Soon. The ladies are being all awkward. They want to get to _know_ each other and be sure about their feelings. FFS, ladies, just bone each other. C'mon.

***

Maggie severely underestimated Alex Danvers. 

Sure, she knew getting involved with someone before they had truly discovered themselves, especially when she herself was such a train wreck, was a bad idea and that’s the exact reason she had tried to stall the inevitable. Alex, of course, is pretty irresistible and Maggie is only human. 

She expected some hesitation, a lot of questioning and soul searching. 

There is no way in hell she is prepared for super powered siblings and their comatose aunts, a possibly genetically altered father stuck in a Schrodinger's limbo of alive or not, and going AWOL from both the city police where she works and the secret government agency where Alex does. 

Whether or not they kissed and how far they got when they did doesn’t really seem to fall on the scale at all. 

Although, she muses, Alex is fairly decent in the kissing department, amazingly so. 

Maggie can go a long, long way on those kisses alone. 

And Alex does not seem hesitant at all in that regard. 

What she really needs right now is for Astra to wake up so they can make a move one way or the other. Maggie has time in lieu, a personal day here or there is not going to raise any eyebrows, but Alex has to get back to the DEO as soon as possible to give her statement. Or they really are going to send in a SWAT team. 

“Oh my god.” Alex breaks the silence with a heavy sigh and overly dramatic thump of her head down to the mattress. “I think I’m going crazy.”

Maggie just tilts her head to the side and grins. 

“Going?”

Twisting her lips in a look of displeasure, Alex widens her whole expression as a response. 

She laughs. 

“You could just poke her until she wakes.”

Alex gasps and fails to hide the wide eyed look of horror she gives to the woman on the bed as if she had just suggested they decapitate her. 

“I’m not poking her!” 

“Alright, just a suggestion.” Raising her hands in supplication, she shrugs. “Do you at least have a pack of cards? We could play gin while we wait for Sleeping Beauty, here.”

Alex mumbles something with a shake of her head. 

“What?” And Maggie, scenting a victory, doesn’t let it go. “What was that?”

She gets a glare in return. 

“I don’t know how to play.”

“Then I might just win something against you. I say it’s a date.”

They’re staring at each other, eyes flashing and smiles trying not to break through, when a crackling, dry voice interrupts them. 

“Would you mind performing your mating ritual over somebody else?”

***

“Danvers!” She interrupts the somewhat repetitive and rambling instructions with only a small amount of annoyance, honestly it’s mostly amusement. “I got it. Don’t spook her, don’t let her leave, don’t let her kill me. You realise I _have_ been around other people before and survived?”

What Alex does not need to say, what neither of them really want to acknowledge, is the absolute danger she would be in if Astra suddenly decides to change her mind and her inability to stop the woman doing anything she really wanted. 

She is not, Astra has assured them, about to turn around and mistreat them as her thanks for getting her out of there. She has been tight lipped about just exactly what happened _there_ , seemingly not eager to go into details other than ‘it was not pleasant’. 

Maggie gets the sneaking suspicion that Astra is prone to wild understatements and her version of ‘not pleasant’ is actually everybody else’s version on ‘pure fucking hell’. 

And Alex sighs, because yes she’s rambling and even Maggie can see she’s nervous, but she absolutely does have to go eat some crow and minimise the problems caused by their impromptu harbouring of a resurrected alien… 

Maggie’s not entirely sure of the correct term here. Is Astra a fugitive? She was definitely working against the DEO when she was alive, if Alex’s stories are correct, but there’s no more team of mind controlling Kryptonians trying to take over the world (and Maggie is actually really glad about _that_ turn of events and sometimes wishes she could remain part of the ignorant masses who remember a mass headache and do not have any idea of how actually close they came to annihilation), and surely death and months of torture can wipe the slate clean somewhat. 

Can super powered villains be trusted if they blink their sharp grey eyes and promise not to be naughty again?

Maggie can only hope. 

“Go, Alex. I’ve got it.”

And Alex walks out the door. 

It’s not an unpleasant sight, as sights go. 

“You love her.”

Then there’s the other thing. The half dead kryptonian thing in Alex’s bed. In any other circumstance, Maggie might be jealous; she hasn’t made it anywhere near Alex’s bed yet. But to be honest, she can hardly envy the bedraggled creature in front of her. 

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.” The sigh is involuntary and the words flow without censorship. “But Alex definitely is...:”

Maggie has yet to definite it, she doesn’t know if there are any words to describe just what Alex is. Not to her at any rate. Everything is still so new and sparkly and, quite frankly, they haven’t really had time to breathe since their first real kiss, let alone examine what they are. 

“... unique.” Astra finishes for her. “I find Alexandra to be intriguing beyond measure also.”

She turns, focusing her eyes on Astra as a person for the first time, rather than a mission, rather than the high voltage situation that surged adrenaline through their evening and resulted in adopting a stray. Astra’s eyes are focused on the doorway, distant, seeing further than Maggie is sure she could see herself. 

The words escape her mouth before she knows she is thinking them. 

“You love her, too.”

Crap.   
Great going, Sawyer, she thinks, as if you weren’t jumping into a risky situation yourself, why don’t you just push your new maybe girlfriend into the arms of her old unrequited crush. Yup, that’d just about top off the cherry on all your failed relationship sundaes. 

Now, if only she could just swallow the words back up and ignore they ever existed, that would be just dandy. 

“No.” The insistence is fast, spat out, demanding in its intensity, for all that Astra is struggling to push upwards rather than lying supine on the bed. “I… that is an exaggeration to the extreme. I merely admire her, one soldier to another.”

With a huff of annoyance and not a small amount of chagrin, Astra falls back to the mattress and settles on glaring. 

Maggie just scoffs, placated for now that she’s in no danger. 

“So the obtuseness is a Kryptonian thing? Good to know.”

***

“Your name is Sawyer?”

The agreement is half out of her mouth before she remembers to correct herself. 

“Yeah, well… Maggie. Maggie Sawyer.”

Astra nods, as if taking this bit of news in, as she has taken in all information since she has woken up. Emotionless and expressionless. 

“Maggie. Maggie Sawyer, do you think l could, perhaps…?”

She quirks her brow at the parroted response, almost sure Astra is mocking her, but not quite because… alien. Astra. Krypton. Oh geez. She should really pay attention. Astra is gesturing futilely to the sheets over her. 

Or… she finally clicks, to the barely there gown Cadmus had kept her in. 

She and Alex had rinsed her over with damp cloths and then covered her, but Astra remains in the tattered gown nearly twelve hours later and Maggie can only imagine how sickly and unpleasant it feels. And that is without imagining anything they’d put her through while wearing it. 

“Oh. Right.” 

Maggie blinks, takes a brief glance around the room and her heart freezes as she realises her options. Her awkward, awkward options. Perhaps she should have begged Alex to stay harder. 

“So um, do you think you can…?” She makes a brave attempt at mimicking getting up with her arms and glancing towards the bathroom. “Or maybe just, like, some clothes?”

Whatever small amount of colour had gathered in Astra’s cheeks fades and Maggie can only imagine what scenario she’s picturing, but the general unspoken consensus between the two of them seem to be that the less Maggie has to actually help Astra physically the better for the both of them. 

“Just clothes for now, I think.” Astra nods as if to convince herself. “I am sure I can manage that much.”

“Right.” Maggie nods gratefully, not realising she’d been holding her breath until she’s exhaling. “Good work. I’m sure Alex has some spare stuff around here, somewhere.”

Eying the room, Maggie makes her best guess at which drawer to pull open and, discovering nothing but socks, tries again. Eventually she finds t-shirts and sweat pants and, thank god, a packet of unused underwear. 

Just for kicks, she picks a shirt with a bright yellow smiley face on it. Kara, definitely Kara. 

When she turns to the bed, Astra is watching her curiously. 

“You are not familiar with this room, then?”

“No.”

Maggie does not elaborate, biting back the need to explain just how new her relationship with Alex is, feeling the strangest and strongest urge to protect what she has without weakening it, and on top of all that, feeling guilty as hell for it. 

She can’t help but sense Astra is digging for information, as weak and as cautious as she seems, she has the look of a hawk sizing up her surroundings and looking for a strike point. 

“I’m just gonna… “ Her arm comes up to point out the door. “Wait… out… there.”

***

There is really only so much candy crush she can play before her brain melts.

Okay, fine, there is really only so much candy crush she can play before she’s out of lives and, honestly, half a freakin’ hour for one measly life is ridiculous and she should delete the app and she wil. She _will_. 

No, she won’t. 

She’s already texted Alex an update and lost all her lives and considered downloading another game to pass the time, and there’s not really much more she can do without it becoming quite obvious that she’s avoiding Astra. 

The woman makes her nervous, in more than just a super powered evil villain kind of way. 

She’s too astute, too observant. 

Too honest. 

But she forces herself to knock on the door and gets a muffled response she takes as permission to enter. 

“Hey, how are you doing?” She really has no basis for comparison on how a supposedly invulnerable woman who has lost her powers is supposed to be, but she figures accepting Astra at her word is probably a good start. “Do you want something to eat?”

Kara likes food. 

This much she knows. 

“Please.”

At least she has a mission now, purpose, and she goes to raid Alex’s kitchen to procure something more nutritious than cold pizza and coffee dregs. 

***

Omelettes are easy and a safe bet if she doesn’t look too closely at the use by date on the eggs. 

On the list of bizarre and unexpected things that have happened in the past day, sitting in Alex’s bedroom sharing breakfast foods with an alien is probably somewhere in the middle and Maggie really ought to reevaluate her life if it is. 

Astra began by sniffing cautiously at each forkful, but soon began taking larger bites and is now eating with vigor. 

“Alex will be home soon. A few hours, tops.” She breaks the silence eventually, awkwardness spilling over into nerves. “I messaged her to bring more supplies, so we might be able to actually feed you then. Help you get back up on your feet.”

Astra’s fork stops midway to her mouth and Maggie shrinks back at the shrewd look. 

“You have nothing to fear from me, Maggie Sawyer.”

And Maggie makes a little pfft sound. 

“I wasn’t worried. You said you wouldn’t hurt us.”

But Astra keeps watching her. 

“That’s not why you fear me.”

Maggie nearly chokes on her mouthful of egg and cheese. 

“Alex admires you.” Astra continues and Maggie suspects this is her version of kindness, this stark ignoring of societal conventions wherein it is accepted that everyone just ignore and gloss over the grossly awkward and painfully obvious. “In a way that she does not admire me.”

The pffft out of her mouth this time is louder and larger. 

Astra narrows her eyes. 

“You do not think this is true?”

“You want to know what I think? I think Kryptonian gaydar is shit.”

This sentence seems to puzzle Astra more than anything and Maggie has to stifle giggles, actual giggles, at the confused expression on the woman’s face. 

***

Maggie should be watching the screen, having dragged Alex’s computer in here, but honestly she cannot help but watch the woman in the bed watching the screen instead. 

Astra has quirked her head to the side as if to examine the people on the laptop from a new angle, as if they’re a puzzle she needs to solve, as if daytime television is going to make sense to any sane person let alone an alien bought back from the dead. 

There are shadows in her face, thinning out her features marked with bruises and healing wounds, and Maggie can see the beauty that lies there. Sees it easily. She’s like some ancient Greek statue, an eerily accurate description given the woman’s penchant for going completely still for long periods of time. 

Her likeness would not be amiss in the halls of great museums, Maggie thinks, an ingrained sense of nobility, grace, and the self assuredness that comes with it. 

She bears a likeness to her niece that Maggie suspects would not be welcome. The way she’s like a curiously adorable puppy trying to understand the world around them. 

Unbidden, unwelcomed, unwanted, comes the strange image of running her finger across the absurdly sculptured nose and… nope. 

No. 

Maggie jumps up and moves away from the bed. 

No way. 

Not happening.

She is not going to make this any weirder than it already is. For fuck’s sake. 

Wide eyed, she finds herself staring at Astra’s confused and curious eyes, scanning her up and down as if she is the latest puzzle needing to be solved, more interesting than the shouting talk show guests on the screen. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yup.” Maggie nods. Desperately. “Absolutely, I’m just gonna… go…”

… to the bathroom… in my own apartment… away from here… far, far away…

Somewhere in the apartment a door opens and closes and Maggie breathes the biggest sigh of relief she can ever remember. 

“Thank Christ, Alex is home.”

***

... to be continued...


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It has been years, lifetimes, entire worlds since Astra has been touched with anything less than violence and force._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** omg, two updates a day apart? Do not get used to this, people. 
> 
> **A/N2:** They're wristing! (kinky fuckers). :D

***

Astra is a weapon with no target to aim for. 

Her life is a series of ebbs and flows, Krypton almost seems like a dream, so long ago, too many lifetimes, and she had no purpose there, really, except for being the adjunct to other people: Alura’s sister; Kara’s aunt; Non’s wife; the ill begotten twin that defied the codex; the General to a non acknowledged army. No purpose, but always a place. 

It wasn’t until she found herself in Fort Rozz, newly awakened on Earth after so many static years in the Phantom Zone, that she’d honed herself into a weapon. Necessity had moulded her into a leader, eat or be eaten, and she had refused to lie down and be swallowed up by anyone else’s will to live. 

Purpose woke her up, trained her muscles, sharpened her brain, made her lethal and noteworthy. 

And then… 

She blinks, unwilling to dwell. What happened happened and nothing she does can change that. Remembering the bright lights and astringent scents, the relentless hands, and that eerie, ever present screech that she had never admitted to being her own voice pulled out of her throat by instruments designed for cruelty. Until she’d stopped making sounds, just… stopped. 

She cannot remember, has no frame of reference to begin processing just how long her powers have been gone. It was an ongoing pattern in that place; the giving and taking of her strength and healing. Until it had just stopped returning. 

Astra supposes she is useless to scientists as a husked out, broken shell. 

Her body aches in ways she has never felt before, not even on Krypton. Such atrocities were never a Kryptonian habit. Earth, however, has scientists as cruel as any Florgon. 

But Earth has many unexpected things. Earth has Alex, brave and foolish and noble and loyal to a fault Alex. And now it has Maggie, Alex’s paramour, a strange and beguiling creature that trembles in her confidence, fumbling in her self assurance. 

And Earth, of course, has Kara. 

Her brain refuses to think on her niece. 

She focuses, instead, on something infinitely less painful. The voices coming from the next room, muffled but audible. Her powers may be gone, but her senses thrive. 

In her memories, Alex is a soldier; upright and forceful, voice authoritative and strong. She remembers the passion of Alex’s voice strung high with panic and urgency. But the warm softness oozing through the walls is a side of Alex she has not seen before. 

Here, in this apartment, with the woman Maggie, Alex is relaxed and comfortable. It creates an ache in Astra she has long buried, all the way back to Krypton, standing in her deep blue robes next to Non and his cold, expressionless face as she watched Alura and Zor-El share affection, as she watched a tiny cherub grow. 

But Astra was never built for that. 

“Hey.”

As attentive as she has been to the voices, Astra is sitll surprised by Alex poking her face around the bedroom door. 

“Hey.” 

She repeats the greeting, mirroring the word and inflection as best she can. Alex’s eyes glint with a humour that Astra does not understand, other than the inkling that perhaps her stilted awkwardness is amusing. 

“You’re certainly looking better.”

There is hope in Alex’s eyes, but she sees no point in pandering to it. 

“I feel atrocious.”

The stunning grin that breaks over Alex’s face makes her turn away. Her eyes fall on Maggie, standing behind her, and the woman looks away immediately, unable to meet her eyes. 

Interesting. 

“The fact that you can say atrocious means you’re a thousand times better than when I left.”

Astra sneers. 

“You humans are weak and fragile and I do not understand how your race has survivied if this is how to feel day to day.”

She watches, curious and curiously hungry, when Alex and Maggie share a look. 

“Have you tried getting up yet?”

The protest is on the tip of her tongue, automatic, about how she’s not a child and does not need coddling like one. She is a decorated officer in an intergalactic force. She has seen galaxies and planets these women can only dream of. She has power beyond their wildest dreams. 

Astra has a gaudy shirt that grins absurdly from her torso and a sickening fear of trying to stand by herself. 

“No.” She says simply. “But I should. Soon.”

It’s the gentle understanding that galls her as Alex ushers Maggie out of the room. Astra is regal. She commands soldiers. She is from one of the great Kryptonian houses. She is disciplined and foreboding. 

She does not pout. 

***

“I can do it.” She insists. 

Alex merely rolls her eyes and continues shouldering Astra’s weight as they shuffle into the bathroom. 

She hates this, hates the weakness and the vulnerability and the absolute humiliation of having to be assisted in the most basic of tasks. 

“You’re worse than Kara.” comes the voice near her ear. 

Her sharp intake of breath must alert Alex, because she feels the fingers go from impersonal to gently soothing against the thin shirt at her back. 

“She’d be here, you know.” Alex says softly. “If I’d told her. She doesn’t know, yet.”

Astra sets her jaw and doesn’t reply. 

“I want to know more.” The words are not new, they’d gone through them before, Astra remembers even though she had been a lot more incapacitated this morning when they had all talked. “Someone’s leaking intel from the DEO to Cadmus. If they knew you were here…”

She sighs and reaches out to grab hold of the basin, shifting her weight out of Alex’s arms. 

“She misses you, Astra. She’ll be thrilled when I tell her.”

“No.” Astra says it firmly, steadfast, ignoring the dizziness that threatens to fell her. “She is better off believing I am dead.”

Alex opens her mouth to argue and Astra pulls all her resolve to stand tall and not falter. 

“I can do this part on my own, Alexandra, unless you are planning to help me wipe.”

She watches the colour flush into Alex’s cheeks, watches her jaw bite down on the words that no doubt want to follow. 

“This isn’t over.”

And when she leaves, Astra falters, dropping her weight heavily on the sink. 

***

By some miracle of Rao, she makes it back to the bed without falling over. 

She feels both better and worse for her little sojourn. Answering the call of nature after so long is an enormous relief in itself and then splashing cool, fresh water over her skin made her feel more awake. But the entire trip took longer than she would have thought possible and she’s exhausted all the way to her bones. 

Illness and injury is distasteful. 

She is slow and careful, but obviously makes more noise than she thinks as the women take this as their cue to enter. 

“Feeling better?”

Astra gets the feeling that Alex’s pointed look gives more than one level to the question, but she is not ready to re enter that discussion, and merely nods her head. 

Maggie gives a quick nod and Astra picks up on the accelerated pulse and quickening of her breath. The woman is nervous. 

“Yeah.” Is Maggie’s succinct interjection. “I just came in to say bye. Gotta go to work and see if I still have a job.”

She moves to leave the room and Astra is not sure which of the three of them is more surprised when Alex reaches out to grab Maggie’s elbow and pull her back. 

It’s uncomfortably intimate, watching them kiss and convention on all planets would require her to avert her eyes. But she doesn’t. Like all things, Astra muses, Alex kisses to prove a point. It’s personal, private, and making a definite statement. 

Astra is just unsure who it is aimed at. 

Her mouth goes dry, that ache comes back, and she has the most ridiculous urge to touch the both of them in this moment, to meld herself into the embrace. That’s the thought that makes her finally look away. 

“Wow.” 

Maggie is breathless and stunned when Alex finally lets her go. Alex grins. 

“Have a good night, Sawyer.”

***

Astra can feel the sun going down, can feel the yellow rays pulling back from her like a physical being. Her body feels the pull to follow, to chase the last energising atoms before they flee completely. 

The room darkens and silence rises. 

It’s an awkward, heavy atmosphere. They haven’t really spoken since Maggie left. She wonders what Alex would do if she pushed herself up and out of this bed, stumbled her way out of the apartment and onto the street. Wonders if Alex will try to keep her prisoner by any means necessary or merely sigh in relief at her absence. 

But Astra knows both of these are untrue. And disingenuous. 

Alex is more honourable than that. 

She does not believe that she is a prisoner, but somehow cannot conceive of freedom. The close, cold walls she has been kept in have imprinted themselves into her very being and the thought of walking away fills her with something dark and sticky she refuses to name as fear… 

… _(terror, panic, pain, bright green stones and dark red blood, screaming)_...

“You okay?”

Alex is sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair she has dragged in from another room, steering well clear of the bed, and Astra follows her gaze down to her own hands, clenched in tight fists pulling at the very seams of the sheets she is lying on. Her breath burns hot and trapped in her lungs. 

She forces herself to relax, to unclench her fists. 

“I apologise, Alexandra.”

“No.” Alex is quick to correct her. “I didn’t mean… it’s just… you looked upset.”

Upset is definitely a word. 

“I am fine.” But Alex does not look convinced. “Bad memories. I’d rather not dwell.”

There is something in Alex’s eyes that looks too much like understanding to be comfortable. 

“I get it. You want a distraction?”

Astra can think of several ways for Alex to distract her, but that train of thought is inappropriate and would definitely be unwelcome. So she quirks her brow instead. 

“What do you have in mind?”

***

Apparently, what Alex has in mind is coddling her like a child. 

Again. 

Astra has to stifle the urge to pout again or pull away like the toddler she is proclaiming not to be. 

“C’mon.” 

Wheedles Alex and, oh, dear lord, but Astra thinks Alex is at her most dangerous like this, pleading and wide eyed, forget the warrior woman in battle. She’d give anything to that voice and that face. 

“This always relaxes…” The unspoken name hangs in the air before Alex swallows and looks down, finishing weakly. “... me.”

She is certain that’s not what was going to be said. 

Sighing, like this is the large inconvenience it most definitely is, Astra shifts forward in the bed, allowing Alex to climb in behind her. 

There’s a moment where she feels skin, the drag of Alex’s shin against her lower back where the hideously cheerful shirt has ridden up, her breath catches and she bites her lip, before Alex pulls away. 

And then… 

Oh. 

Then. 

Astra closes her eyes and exhales, muscles she doesn’t realise were tense begin to loosen. 

“See?” Alex’s voice is smug and triumphant in her ear. “Everyone likes having their hair brushed.”

Behind her lids, Astra does not see steel bars and concrete walls, the rush of clubs at her limbs, scalpels splitting her skin. 

No. 

Astra sees stars. 

She can feel each and every strand that pulls and runs through Alex’s fingers and the bristles of the brush. Soft, gentle fingers that gather and smooth, thread and separate and brush against her scalp, light nails scratching. 

It has been years, lifetimes, entire worlds since Astra has been touched with anything less than violence and force. 

It wells up in her; an unstoppable, greedy chasm that drinks it all in. Every drag of the brush, every soft swipe of fingers. Her world narrows down to breathing and feeling, air in and air out, Alex and softness and something she does not, cannot, will never ever deserve. 

She turns her head at the same time Alex is tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, unable to stop herself from nuzzling her cheek into Alex’s palm. 

Alex stills behind her, holding her breath. 

Starvation that has nothing to do with food makes her bold, makes her foolish, makes her greedy enough to open her mouth and taste the very salt from Alex’s wrist, reaching up to hold it, fearful of having it taken before she’s ready. 

But Alex does not pull away. 

Her intake of breath is sharp and loud in Astra’s ears. 

For several seconds, Astra shares Alex’s pulse, feeling it throb in the tender skin of her lips, a moment so incredibly, painfully intimate she could throw her head back and howl. 

“Oh.” Alex’s stunned breath puffs against the top of her head, shaky and disbelieving and hoarse with something she is too scared to name as want. “Astra…”

But her name is like chilled water sluicing over them both and it is Astra that pulls away, scooting to the far side of the bed. 

“I am sorry.”

Alex sits still, frozen, her wrist held tenderly by her other hand against her chest, the brush lying forgotten on the bed. 

“That was inappropriate. Please forgive me.”

She can see the reflex in Alex’s eyes, the naturally ingrained impulse to reassure and comfort, but this does not happen. Instead, Alex raises her eyes and meets Astra’s inquiring gaze head on, searching as if she has the answers Alex needs to understand. 

“Maggie.”

It’s a whisper, a confession between them. 

“Yes.” And all Astra can do is agree, biting down on her grief. “Maggie.”

***


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As awkward situations go, this is definitely somewhere near the top of the list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Okay, we are shaping things up a little. Until now, each character has been given their own chapter. In this one, we hear from all three. I was trying to get things moving on. And it worked. A little. Not as much as I'd hoped, but we're getting there. (from what was supposed to be a quick, one shot PWP... it has turned into a multi chapter slow burn... but there has been no complaints so far - except from me... get to bangin' ladies!)
> 
>  **A/N2:** So, apparently in my world, Alex and Maggie swear like sailors with impulse control issues. Let's just go with it (my eternal pleasure will be introducing Astra to curse words).
> 
>  **A/N3:** Also, I know. But I'd started writing this BEFORE the relevant episodes aired. I had no idea of the floor plan of Alex's apartment. In THIS world, Alex has a separate bedroom with a door. I really like Alex's onscreen apartment... but... I also like this world, in which Alex has a bedroom, a Maggie, an Astra, and nobody mentions Mon El. 
> 
> Who's with me?
> 
>  **A/N3:** I suck at updating, I suck at life. We will all just have to deal with this.

***

Alex can not stand still. 

She grits her teeth against the pressure of scrubbing the oven door when she hears Maggie enter the apartment. Blood pulses quick and heady through her head, making her blink in an effort to remain upright as she stands. 

“Hey!”

Maggie is not stupid, she has never been stupid, and Alex watches her eye the gleaming kitchen counter tops, the rubber gloves and soapy sponge in her hand, over to the sofa with its rumpled blankets and smushed pillows. 

“Hey?” With a quirked head, it comes out more like a question than a greeting. “What’s up, Alex?”

“Up?” Her voice is high and she cringes. “Nothing’s up.”

With a quick purse of her lips and a knowing glare, Maggie makes it obvious she does not believe her. 

“Right. So, just had trouble sleeping and decided to spring clean for the absolute fun of it, then?”

Alex can feel herself deflate as she pulls the gloves off and leaves them on the bench. 

“What happened, Alex?”

Maggie’s eyes are brown and understanding, much too kind for her own good. Much more kind than Alex deserves. 

“Nothing?” It comes out like a question and she knows, _knows_ it makes her sound guiltier than she should be. “I think it’s nothing. I mean, like, something, but nothing really.”

And… she’s rambling. She’s officially channelling Kara. Good times. 

Hands come down on her shoulder and Maggie guides her face so they’re looking at each other. 

“Did you fuck her?”

“No! God!” She pulls back, taking the space she needs to gulp down air. “Jesus, Maggie, what the fuck?”

And Maggie smiles. 

“Okay then, so whatever it was, it’s not that bad. This is a fucked up situation, Danvers, there’s no right or wrong here. Just the truth or not truth and I know which one I prefer.”

Well, then. When she puts it like that. 

“I brushed her hair.”

Maggie’s eyes widen and Alex holds her breath. 

“Brushed her hair? Good lord, Alex, are there photos? Should we prepare for blackmail?”

She can see the humour in it, there’s sarcasm practically dripping from Maggie’s face as she teases, she’s not stupid. It’s just that Maggie wasn’t there, Maggie doesn’t understand the enormity of what had happened. 

“Maggie.” It comes out like a whisper, a confession. “It wasn’t just… She almost kissed me.”

Instantly, the humour disappears. 

“Almost?”

Such a scared, shaky little question, as if she needs clarification before she decides to fall apart or not. 

As if Alex has words for the second where Astra’s lips had scaled the inside of her wrist, the way she could feel her own blood throb and pulse through the veins under Astra’s mouth. 

“My wrist.” She holds it out like an offering, like proof. “She put her mouth on my wrist. It wasn’t a kiss, but…”

“Almost.” Maggie finishes. 

The expression on her face is unreadable and Alex wishes they were closer, that they’d had time to get to know each other and could read all the little micro-expressions and mannerisms and then, maybe, she’d know if she was about to get dumped before they’d even gotten off the ground. 

“But nothing happened?”

“No.” Alex rushes to reassure. “She pulled away after that.”

Maggie looks straight at her, sharp and shrewd. 

“She pulled away? Not you?”

A nervous bubble escapes her throat, almost a giggle, but there’s nothing funny about the way her stomach drops. 

“I was surprised! I didn’t know what to do!” It’s a plea, an excuse. “Maggie… Maggie, please…”

And then, thankfully, wonderfully, Maggie gives her that small reassuring smile. The one that makes her think things are going to be okay. The one that allows her to start breathing again. 

“Relax, Alex. I’m not upset, I’m… confused.”

A tentative hand comes up to wrap itself around the wrist she’s holding out and Alex lets herself be pulled forward, lets herself feel the body against hers, smaller, but a perfect fit. There’s something just so _right_ about the feel of Maggie’s body, like her own body has been looking for this all her life without letting her know. 

“This is a very confusing situation, she told me I had nothing to fear from her.”

Alex remembers the look of horror, shame, and humiliation on Astra’s face. 

“I think she’s just as confused as us.” She looks down at her maybe girlfriend, definitely the girl she likes to kiss and wants to continue doing so. “Do you want me to find somewhere else for her, Maggie?”

It’s a loaded question, asking so much more than the words. 

Maggie’s nose crinkles. 

“Would you?”

She could answer instantly, knows the right answer is ‘Yes, of course, anything for you’. It’s what Maggie, what anyone would want, surely. But she thinks about it, takes the time to imagine telling Astra to leave, to walk out into possible danger, when they have no idea who their leak is and therefore no idea who could or would turn them all into Cadmus. 

“I… it’s complicated.” That phrase is beginning to lose all meaning, they have used it so often lately. “Maggie, I killed her. She is where she is now, because of me. Everything they did, everything they could still do… it’s all because of me.”

Anything else she was going to say is caught in her throat, built up by months of guilt and self recrimination. 

“Hey.” The hands that come to smooth the hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear are welcome and so, so gentle. “Hey, shh, I know, I know.”

Maggie pulls her forward and their foreheads rest against each other, allowing the hot breath in her lungs to find an exit, allow her to calm down from her growing hysteria. 

“I’m sorry, Maggie.” She finds her voice at last, quiet and sincere. “I want this to work with you.”

“Me too, Danvers, me too.”

***

As awkward situations go, this is definitely somewhere near the top of the list. 

Maggie is torn between too many different directions. On one hand, she really, really wants to go all neanderthal and stake some unmistakable claim on Alex, but she has never been that territorial and she refuses to fight for the affections of someone who makes that necessary. On the other, she wants to be the sort of person that understands, that can support Alex in whatever she needs, in what has to be a gut wrenchingly confusing set of circumstances. 

She definitely needs more hands, because another part of her is sick of being set aside and left behind, and yet wants so desperately to fight for Alex, but mostly to belong, to feel a part of something, of somebody’s world. 

A gentle knock on the door, because of course it has to be her; if she left it to these two idiots, nobody would ever talk in this apartment again. 

It’s a muffled little call that sounds through the door, so she sticks her head in. 

“You awake?”

Astra gives her an awkward little half smile, half grimace in return and she takes it as a positive, widening the door and stepping inside. She feels Alex creep in behind her. Turning to look, she notes Alex staring at the floor and already knows Astra is staring at the ceiling. Right, still up to her, then. 

“How are you going, Astra?”

“Fine.” It’s bitten up to the ceiling. 

“Do you need anything?” She watches Astra inhale and continues without letting the lie in first. “And tell the truth, for heaven’s sake, or I’ll make the rest of the day harder on you.”

This is not the first stubborn person she’s tended to and, if Alex is anything to go by, definitely not the last. 

“Some water, please.” The request alone is a surprise, but the next sentence, soft and whispered, is what really stuns her. “And when you have a moment, Maggie, will you please assist me in the bathroom?”

The deliberate way the question is aimed at her and her alone, suggests Astra is feeling more than awkward about what happened earlier and that the possibility of Maggie seeing her vulnerable is so much less awkward than it was just yesterday. 

“Is it urgent?”

Alex has to get ready for work and if Astra had forgone asking for help all night just to avoid her, she probably wants Alex to be long gone before she gets up. It seems Astra has had the same thought process, because she looks between Maggie and Alex and shakes her head. 

When Alex does scurry into the shower, obviously relieved to be free, Maggie turns back to the bed. 

“Can we talk?”

***

Oh, this is some strange form of torture. 

And torture is something Astra knows well. She cannot look up into Maggie’s eyes, knowing there will be questions and recriminations, yet she cannot _not_ look up, because her only other choice is to hear the water running in the next room. 

Alex is showering, preparing for work, naked underneath streaming water and Astra should not be picturing that. Should not be listening for the subtle shift in sounds that signifies movement and imagining the ways in which Alex is cleaning herself. 

“So… Alex told me what happened.”

For a split second, when she looks at the woman in front of her, the two of them coalesce and her brain pictures Maggie in the shower. 

Astra blinks and tries to keep her face neutral. 

“Kinda like to hear your version.”

She is frustratingly calm, Astra thinks, not giving her any emotion she can latch onto and turn into a weakness, utilizing for her own gain. If it had come as an attack, she could defend herself from a righteous place. But it didn’t, it’s all just so sickeningly _reasonable_.

“You must understand, I am not myself right now. I am not someone who needs or wants affection from others.”

Maggie quirks her head, sizing her up, and her brow furrows. 

“Sounds lonely.”

“It’s called survival.” She cannot stop the hackles from rising, that this small, fragile human weakling dare remark on her very method of existence. “You know nothing of my life.”

And Maggie, sweet, foolish, ignorant Maggie shrugs as if Astra didn’t just slam the door on the conversation, and sits herself down on the bed next to Astra’s legs. She pulls them back, feeling almost ashamed at the show of vulnerability. 

“So tell me.”

If she had her powers, Maggie would not be calm, Maggie would not be sitting here demanding Astra tell her things she has told no one since she last saw her sister. 

“Twins were an aberration on Krypton.” No one is more surprised than herself to hear the words begin to spring forth. “My sister was planned, I was an unfortunate mistake.”

She can see already the human urge to protest and calm and reassure and, honestly, if this Maggie had been under her command in the army she would have worked that out of her early and completely. One cannot listen and learn by interrupting each segment of a story or confession. 

“It was not bad or apparent in our early years. We were treated very much as one person, I suppose nobody could grasp or comprehend the idea of twins. We shared everything, often it seemed like we were one. There was no difference, it was not unusual to find us in the same place, in the same space; sharing a seat or a meal or a bed.”

There are no words to describe the feeling, of having four hands and two heads and all of it the same. Of someone not you, yet very much you, with the same features that would often mirror yours but would also offer differences in small and surprising ways. The way that thoughts would run between them without spoken word, whole conversations in a blink of an eye. The comfort that being stroked by your own hand that wasn’t when you were upset. 

“To me, to both of us, there was no difference in our bodies, she was an extension of me and I of her. As we got older, however, this was frowned upon and it became obvious that my sister had a place in society that I never would. She followed her path while I created one for myself. We were separated in ways that were…”

 _Cruel_ she wants to say, the word sitting on the edge of her tongue, but monstrous all the same. She remembers lying stiff and formal on her very single and separate bed in her new room a full hallway down from her sister, unable to close her eyes, unable to breathe, unable to comprehend why the very walls needed to be there in the first place. 

She shakes her head and changes her train of thought. There is no point dwelling on things long gone. 

“Marriage on Krypton was different to that on Earth. Love or emotion was not, or at least was not commonly, a factor. Reproduction was only possible through the codex and only after a rigorous vetting and approval process. Most marriages were matches made for gain, be it political, financial, or status, to increase the name of the family.”

There is no escaping the way Maggie tries valiantly to hide her emotions regarding this tale, nor the way it fails spectacularly if the creases in her brow are anything to go by. Nevertheless, she has begun this tale, and pushes on. 

“Some, not all, of these unions grew to include positive feelings, even affection. My sister was lucky to be in such a union. She recovered some of what she had lost when we were children, it nourished her in ways sustenance could not. She not only achieved, but excelled the expected outcome and I… the extraneous...”

She looks away so she does not have to see the way Maggie’s face hardens. 

“My match was made for military gain and, as you might expect from a military operation, did not gain the benefits my sister did. My marriage bred neither affection nor kindness, but merely a form of mutual respect. Kara was…”

At this, Astra must stop. She needs to breathe, to take a moment, to reign in the images that fly at her, the small bundle made of her genes, but not of her. Her likeness, but not her likeness, her daughter in everything but name. 

“Kara _is_ the only respite from this wall that manifests between me and any other person since I was a young girl myself. I do not expect you to understand the way so many years of isolation can twist a person. Suffice to say that, in my current weakness, when Alex sat with me… when she…”

Astra is powerless, perhaps, but she can still see the progression of emotion and understanding on Maggie’s face. Pity is something she abhors, but this is not quite pity. It is almost… she hopes she is wrong… remembrance and heartbreak.

“I know a little something about being denied love because of something that’s not your fault.” Maggie’s words are soft and hesitant, but firm and unyielding, leaving no room for argument. “Something that you cannot change about yourself.”

Looking up, she meets Maggie’s eyes and gives her the only thing she can. 

“It will not happen again, Maggie. I… I know I was in the wrong…”

But Maggie’s hand on her wrist grabs her attention and puts a stop to her words. It is not an aggressive, painful hold, set to hurt, to restrain or possess. It is like Astra has found Maggie these past few days: contradictory and surprising, careful but firm, gentle but not allowing her to pull back. 

“Astra, you are not wrong for wanting affection. You know that, right?”

She loathes this pit of seething resentment that oozes out of her belly. It is so easy for this human to say these words, so typical, and Astra is not a puzzle or a problem to be solved, to be fixed. 

“Right?” Maggie insists when there is no answer. 

Scoffing is the absolute worst thing to do in the moment, Astra realises this the second she sees Maggie’s expression change from problem solving to challenge. 

When she was in that place, surrounded by latex gloved hands and kryptonite laced air, Astra had trained herself not to react, to remain still and reactionless to whatever they’d done. A small, stubborn, petty part of her that hadn’t wanted to give them the satisfaction. She couldn’t stop them taking from her body, but she could stop them taking her pain. 

Holding herself still, now, is harder. Impossibly so as Maggie’s hand leaves her wrist and makes its way to the side of her head. Astra is shamed to feel the flinch form on her face before the fingers make contact, Maggie’s skin, red hot flames of fingers just under her ear. 

Their eyes meet and Astra realises for the first time just how close Maggie has gotten to her, shifting up the bed without her knowledge, sitting mere inches from her face. 

“You deserve everything.”

The words are spoken from somewhere she cannot see, given as she has closed her eyes, blocking out the woman in front of her, unable to take this closeness again. 

_No._

It is a thought, a reflex, as natural as breathing, as innate as the knowledge of gravity and the colour of the sky. The flexing of fingers against her skin, coupled with the sharp intake of air in front of her, tell her that she must have spoken it without meaning to. 

“You do.” 

Maggie whispers, and Astra curses humans and all their strange quirks. It’s the softness, the stillness, the _intimacy_ of barely breathed words puffing out against her face that is her undoing, that makes her incline her neck to rest the weight of her head in Maggie’s open and welcoming palm. 

“Whether you believe me or not, Astra, you do.”

***

There is something humanising about a shower. 

Of course, Alex has always been recharged by water, whether that be on a surfboard, swimming, or simply dousing herself under the showerhead for an obscenely long time. It works on a cellular level she was aware of even before biochemistry. 

The last two days have been nothing but a clusterfuck of ups and downs. She thought she was confused and nervous dealing with her feelings for Maggie. That was nothing compared to dealing with her feelings for Maggie whilst also dealing with her newly discovered feelings for Astra, who has literally come back from the dead. 

So it’s no surprise that Alex feels rejuvenated and more awake after letting water wash away her stress. Washing her hair, brushing her teeth, putting on the all too familiar and comforting black DEO outfit. It straightens her spine in a way that hiding in the corners of her own apartment does not. 

She’s ready to open the door, bid a cheery goodbye and good luck to her sudden roommates, and head off to work. 

She’s not particularly ready to open the door and see the both of them sitting so close, Maggie’s hand cupping Astra’s cheek, and the soft murmuring of words between them, so quiet that she cannot make them out into distinguishable sounds. 

And she is definitely, definitely not ready for the rush of _yes_ that runs through her at the sight. 

She should be angry, she should be confused, she should try to figure out what has happened and make excuses so she doesn’t have to think about it ever again.  
But her brain accepts this sight, welcomes it even, and this is even more confusing. 

She loves and admires these two women in fluctuating amounts, but - she is discovering - more or less equally. And the visual of the two of them together is comforting in a way she does not believe could or should be. 

Is she even allowed to like them both like this?

“Hi.”

It’s worse than the ramblings. She’s in her own apartment, among these women she has held entire conversations with already today, there is no need for greeting. If there is any justice in the world, the floor will open up and swallow her whole. 

No luck on that point. 

Maggie looks over to her and her expression is lost. It reminds Alex of the first Fourth of July they’d had after Kara had come to them. After several months, Kara had finally stopped panicking at every loud sound, at every accidental display of her powers, but nobody had been prepared for the fireworks. 

She’d been a teen herself, standing in the warm dark of their backyard, eyes pointed upwards as she followed the slight hiss of the first rocket, allowing the sudden burst of light to contract her pupils. Voices came to her slowly, softly, in the background, and it was several more rocket bursts before her brain managed to define the sounds as cries for help. Looking over, she’d seen Eliza on the ground, trying to comfort Kara who was curled into a ball. Alex had watched as Eliza looked up to Jeremiah. 

The look in Maggie’s eyes now is similar to that in Eliza’s then, helpless and begging for answers. 

So Alex does now what she did then, without thinking, she slides herself into the other side of the bed and wraps her arms around both of them. She feels the stiffening of Astra’s body between them, the moment of readiness where Astra is preparing to shake them both off. But Alex tightens her grip now as she did then, shushing non-words into the alien’s ear, and then she feels Astra give a heave, a large sigh, and her body relaxes. 

Neither Maggie, nor Astra, knows what is happening any more than Alex herself does and this alone is comforting in a way she does not know how to describe. 

***

Well, that about does it. 

She’s screwed. Maggie is all over, one hundred percent, completely, no questions about it screwed. 

She’d thought pining over baby gay Alex was going to be her biggest problem, and then she’d been surprised and a bit overwhelmed by the return of a previously dead crush who was the relative of Alex’s alien sister. That was both surprising and, what she had assumed, the worst of the situation. 

No. Of course not, because she’s Maggie - Magnet for Disaster Architect of her Own Demise - Sawyer. She has never, not once, been able to deny the little strays with their big eyes and broken feelings, always reaching out a hand to help and somehow always surprised when it’s bitten in return. 

Of course everything has devolved from slightly awkward attraction to fully blown codependency and messy feelings and each single one of them shit scared of the situation at hand. 

Astra shut down pretty quickly and so she stands in the living room with Alex and watches her glance, wide eyed and fearful, between the bedroom and Maggie. She really, really hates being the one people look to for advice. She’s not even sure when that happened. Honestly, she would much rather sit back with a beer and watch things play out than be the great lesbian guru dispensing advice whenever asked. 

But dear lord, someone has to pull Alex out of that nervous state. 

“Hey.” Maggie goes for the easy approach, a gentle, questioning smile. “How you doing?”

Alex shrugs with a slight shake of her head. 

“I… I don’t really know.”

“I get it, you know.” And Maggie draws closer, because a confused and confounded Alex Danvers is an adorable and enticing Alex Danvers, and she also feels the need to touch base, to check the reading of the room. “I mean, I was a little unsure, a little wary of what happened with you two, but just now? I don’t think I could have said no if she asked me anything.”

Alex is warm and wonderful and she feels _good_ and right in Maggie’s hands as she pulls her forward, pulls them together. This is becoming familiar and easy and comfortable and she wants this. 

She’s not expecting the laugh, the full throated way Alex throws her head back and bellows. She can feel the shakes of humour throughout Alex’s body against hers. 

“It’s a fucking Kryptonian thing.” Alex murmurs, bringing her head back down to look at her. “I swear it. Have you seen the people that flock around Kara? It’s like they’re magnets or something. Ninety eight percent of National City are complete suckers for my sister. You and I? We got her aunt.”

The unspoken thing there, Maggie is sure, is that those ninety eight percent haven’t met Astra yet and it wouldn’t be long before they were converts too. Maggie can believe it. It is unlike her to be so drawn, to allow herself to be so drawn, to another person so quickly and with so little to go on. 

“This is kinda weird.” She admits, because it is and there’s no getting around that anymore. “But does this mean no more freaking out over minor things?”

Alex’s expression pauses and she can read the thoughts, Alex questioning her use of the word ‘minor’, but then a brilliant grin splits her face. 

“No. No more freak outs from me.” She keeps herself still as Alex leans forward and accepts the soft kiss on her lips eagerly. “Enjoy helping her in the shower, I gotta go to work.”

By the time the words have made it into her skull and been processed into logical thought, Alex has made it halfway to the door and the only thing Maggie can do is reach out, fingers grasping in the empty air. 

“Alex! Hey… Hey Danvers, get back here!”

The only answer she gets is laughter going out the door. 

Well, then. 

Fuck.

***

Astra gets through a shower with only a minimum of assistance from Maggie. 

Standing and washing herself is simple enough, though still more tiring than she would like to admit, she really only needs help washing her hair. Her arms are useless, if not for Alex’s reassurance she would be certain that her ribs have turned to shattered glass inside her chest, raising them above her head is an agony not even she can bear, and she would otherwise avoid it, but she feels sickly and stale and longs to feel clean. 

The tiles of Alex’s shower are now more familiar to her, she thinks, than the inside of her cell from Fort Rozz she spent so much time staring at them intently and trying not to hear the way Maggie stood behind her holding her breath. 

Or the quiet murmured ‘Jesus Fuck’ that she’s fairly sure she wasn’t supposed to hear. 

And then there were the fingers in her hair again and Astra is almost certain that her hair must be some sort of trigger at this point. 

But she gets through it and they both survive and, honestly, she already feels stronger. Hopefully next time she’ll be able to stay upright and hold her arms over her head long enough to wash her own hair. 

Astra is exhausted again, but not sleepy, and definitely sick of the bed. 

They end up in the living area, Astra’s eyes moving over different surfaces and cataloguing the sides of Alex’s life she has never seen before. The table and the bench, the kitchen and its appliances, the framed photos Astra does not look at too closely for fear of the seething jealousy that surfaces when she thinks of missing Kara’s life, but also knows is a wasted gesture. 

Her failings are not Alex’s fault. 

She has never been one to lounge about wastefully, but Maggie assures her that food and Netflix is definitely the way to go. There does not seem to be much choice, so she nods and potters about the kitchen looking for something vaguely edible as she stands in more of Alex’s borrowed clothing. 

The large yawn that Maggie gives would be noticeable to a Grapple and they have neither eyes nor ears. 

“You have not slept.” She says. 

Maggie smiles, a tired, self-depreciating gesture of acknowledgement. 

“You worked all night.” Purpose gives her a form of energy she has been missing. This is something she can do, something worthwhile, something other than lying around like a sack. “The fragility of humans necessitates regular sleep cycles. You are showing obvious signs of fatigue and system break down.”

“Yeah.” Maggie grins even further, amusement clear in her eyes. “You really know how to sweet talk a woman, you know that?” 

Astra ruffles her shoulders. 

“I am merely pointing out the obvious, Maggie. You cannot expect to stay awake for extended periods of time. I may be at a low point, but am still perfectly capable of sitting on a seat by myself. Please try to rest.”

She can see the way Maggie’s eyes flicker between the bedroom and Astra herself. 

There is a reluctance there that she is not sure of. 

“I…” Maggie’s voice is soft. “I’ve never...:”

They are so close, so seemingly in tune like soldiers who have been in numerous battles together, that Astra forgets sometimes that Alex and Maggie are new to this. 

And suddenly Maggie’s insecurity makes sense. 

“I am sure Alex would not mind opening her bed to you.” It is only after the words leave her mouth that she hears them, understands the flush that comes over Maggie’s face. “I meant…”

“Yeah.” But Maggie only gives a soft laugh. “I get it.”

Asta has been on Earth for over a decade and yet she still feels new and alien to human and all their intricacies. She does not understand why Maggie taking the offered bed would be any different to herself doing so, but it seems that there is a line there and instead Maggie ends up curling onto the other end of the sofa that Asta sits down in. 

She watches the television curiously. 

This is not reality. At least, not the reality that was on Alex’s laptop. The show follows people that Maggie assures her is scripted. They are still absurd. 

Her eyes drift to the small woman, watches her face smoothed out, the regular rise and fall of her chest. Honestly. Humans are ridiculous. It is only her ill health that allows Astra to sleep in front of others, showing such high vulnerability. Astra, even powerless, might just very well kill her in her sleep, as far as Maggie knows. 

She does not, absolutely does not, pull the thick, woven blanket from the back of the sofa and cover the tiny woman, tucking her in like she cares. 

She doesn’t. 

She is Astra of the House of In-Ze. 

And when Maggie snuffles and humphs in her sleep, Asta most certainly does not smile. Not in the slightest. There is absolutely no way that Asta, when Maggie’s small sounds turn deeper and more anxious, stays still and allows the shifting of Maggie’s body to gravitate towards her. 

She has no idea how Alex walks into the apartment to find Maggie curled up under her arm sleeping soundly against her side. 

And if Alex values her life, she will not mention it, either. 

***


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A shift has occurred, this becomes clear. Something has changed, something has shifted between them, an understanding of the situation. The mutual attraction at hand and their acknowledgement of it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N:** Yo. What the fuck is this? An update? jfc. Who knew?
> 
> **A/N2:** I am both grateful and somewhat heartbroken that this is the only fic that survived the great hard drive crash of 2017. THE ONLY ONE. All of the others are gone. So many hundreds of thousands of words of fic. So many un-finished chapters that were close to updating. All gone. *sigh* I shall rebuild, eventually, but goddamn that hurt.

***

Alex is tired. 

It’s a well known fact she doesn’t take time off lightly and never for very long. Most people think she’s dedicated, that she feels obligated to work for Kara. Only J’onn really knows or understands that she needs to work, because giving her too much leeway is dangerous and she’s so very close to sliding backwards. The DEO is her saving grace, it has been ever since he freed her from the drunk tank. 

Walking into the DEO and asking for an unspecified amount of time off was always going to be cause for concern and curiosity, was always going to raise eyebrows. She has plenty of leave saved up and she’s fairly sure Pam in HR was just about ready to put her on forced vacation to use some of it up, it should have been a relief that she asked. 

But she did just abandon her mission and, after a metric ton of paperwork on that very issue, she’s just lucky she hasn’t been suspended without pay. J’onn gave her more than a few strange looks, but she trusts him enough to believe he hasn’t read her mind without permission. Plus, she’s pretty damn sure if he had any inkling of what was happening in her apartment, the bottom of a drunk tank would be the least of her worries. 

Kara, on the other hand, was harder to pacify, harder to convince. She’s much too used to dealing with Alex’s bullshit to believe ‘I’m just tired’ as an excuse. Alex has spent a gruelling lunch hour at Noonan’s being grilled. She’s not sure she convinced Kara fully that there’s nothing going on and she was tempted, so very tempted, to tell Kara about Astra. But just the thought of Astra’s fear in regards to Kara was enough to stop her. She’s played the game just well enough that she’s pretty sure there won’t be any surprise Kryptonians bursting through her apartment door anytime soon. One is more than enough at any rate. 

She’s tired, she’s confused, all she really wants is to lie down and sleep for about a month. 

Luckily, she still has some sway with Winn, who may or may not still be convinced she can kill him with her pinky. Pulling him aside had been easy, convincing him to do some hush hush investigation into the possible leak was trickier. He’s going to keep her updated. 

Which leaves the only thing she has left to do is make sense of her home life. 

Yeah. 

RIght. 

Opening the door, Alex is greeted with the last sight she ever thought possible. Astra on her couch wrapped protectively around a sleeping Maggie. Even as she’s trying to process this, Astra sits up straight and meets her eyes in a challenge. It’s as if she’s trying to deny the indisputable fact of the human in clear sight snuggling up to her. 

“Hey.” It’s as casual as she can make it. “How was your morning?”

“Satisfactory.” Astra blinks, her expression blank and not changing in the slightest. “I washed my hair and managed to eat.”

Maggie gives a small, snuffling snore as agreement and Alex has to bite down hard on the smile that pulls at her lips. She puts her keys and bag on the counter. 

“Oh.” It’s a few careful, casual steps closer to the sofa and Astra tenses. “And… uh… your powers?”

The flicker of frustration on Astra’s face is answer enough. 

“I have not felt them yet.”

Sometimes aliens are just too easy. 

“So you didn’t break the bed, then?”

Astra looks down at Maggie and then back up, her spine straightens and face flushes red. Given the way Maggie’s face twitches and her body shifts, the hand that is wrapped around and rests upon her hip must flex. 

“I’ll have you know she did this herself.” Astra’s voice rises with each word. “ I had no part in it. Why the two of you run circles around each other and cannot come to any sort of conclusion about where you stand…”

“Astra!” Alex can’t entirely stop the laugh as she holds up her hands in supplication. “Calm down, okay? I’m just teasing.”

Even as Alex watches, Maggie must pick up on Astra’s growing stress, whimpering in her sleep and eyes flickering. 

“And now you’ve woken her up, Alexandra.”

It’s a stray, and probably best unspoken, thought that Astra pouts like Kara. 

“Hey, shh.” But Alex is more focused on calming her maybe girlfriend in the arms of another, she kneels on the floor and reaches out to soothe, running a hand over her forehead, fingers lightly tracing her scalp. “It’s okay, Maggie, go back to sleep.”

When she looks up, Astra is watching her with a slightly open mouth and Alex becomes acutely aware of how close the three of them actually are. Her left knee is resting against Astra’s foot and she can feel the heat of Astra’s calf all the way up her thigh. 

Her fingers still in Maggie’s hair and her mouth goes dry as she and Astra don’t seem to be able to look away from each other. 

Alex can’t breathe. 

She’s the first to pull away. Of course she is. 

Her movements are fast, erratic, and obvious as she falls back in a lurch just to get away. It’s awkward and over the top, but there’s nothing to be done to recover the moment or save face to spare either of them as her lungs scream for more oxygen, the space to breathe, to think, to get her jumbled thoughts under control. 

“I… I need coffee.” She can’t control the quiver of her voice, breaking in the gall of the heavy, silent room. “You want anything? Are you hungry? Can I make you something?”

She turns to the bench like it’s the answer to all the mysteries of life. 

“Alex…”

There is no mistaking the flat disappointment in Astra’s voice. 

“I can order in?” She continues. “Have you had much take out? Do you know what you like?”

“I have made you uncomfortable.”

Damn her, Astra will not let the matter drop. Alex should be used to it. It took years for Kara to fully grasp subtlety and the complexities of unspoken social contracts. 

“No.” Her hands tremble as she holds the mug in her hand and one look back at the couch makes her shoulders drop. “... yes.”

“I should leave.” Astra says the words like they don’t slide right between Alex’s ribs and pull at something deep. “I should stay with my niece.”

“No!” It comes out of her mouth in an explosion she wishes she could swallow back. Alex sags and breathes in. “Astra, no. I’m not used to this, okay?”

The understatement of the year. Astra’s expression clearly agrees with that thought. 

“Look, up until a couple of weeks ago I didn’t even realise I liked women that way. I’d never felt excited about guys the way I found myself feeling about Maggie.”

She watches the way Astra’s face remains still, but one small nerve spasms in the side of her jaw. 

“The way… “ 

The words catch in her throat, too big and too frightening to let out, but she clears a space for them anyway. The very least Astra deserves is the truth; the way she’d sucked up her fears and spoken truth to Maggie is how she should for Astra, too. 

“The way I’m beginning to feel about you.”

Steel grey eyes snap up to meet hers. 

“It’s overwhelming to suddenly realise I’m gay and then not only have this, whatever this is, with one woman, but two of them?”

Astra nods. 

“I don’t want you to leave, but I don’t know how this is going to work.”

Her mouth is dry and her heart is beating so fast she thinks it might explode right out of her chest. She said them. She said the words out loud. 

And lightening has not struck her down. 

The world has not ended. 

“I find myself much in the same situation, Alex.”

As much as she has been speaking to her, addressing her, admitting this thing out loud to her, Alex has almost forgotten Astra as a sentient being in the conversation that will and can respond. 

“Desire… the pursuit of pleasure with another… was not a factor on Krypton. Yes, it was there for some, but it was not a necessity for the function or continuation of our society as a whole. As such, there was no stigma about who you found comfort in, if you could. Yet it was also not a common thing. It was not something I ever expected for myself. Now I am struggling to make sense of all this…”

Astra is a strong, stoic warrior in Alex’s mind, but in front of her now, she is small and lost and adrift in a sea of confusion. Alex walks over to her and slowly, gently, reaches out.

Her fingertips touch Astra’s cheek and Astra looks up to her with a million questions. She only has one answer. 

“We’ll figure it out.” And suddenly she believes it. “Together.”

***

Maggie wakes after dreams of laying on stone. She has a feeling of voices, the memory if not the knowledge of them. 

She wakes warm and comfortable.

It’s odd, she never really sleeps well in strange places. It usually takes her a long time to relax and climatise herself enough to let down her guard. The last thing she remembers is introducing Astra to the joy of Friends. She seemed more bemused than amused and Maggie figures the nuances have probably gone over her head. 

… wait. 

Astra. 

On the couch. 

Maggie’s eyes flick open. 

For the love of… 

Not only is she leaning up against Astra, her arm wrapped around Astra’s waist like she’s cuddling a teddy, but Alex is leaning up against her. 

“Hey.” A warm voice, thick with almost sleep, greets her. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

She blinks, turning to face Alex more fully, feeling the way all three bodies shift together. It should be awkward. It should be a lot more awkward than it really is. 

“How long was I out?”

It’s more than a little bit surreal, the three of them together like this, but she cannot deny how comfortable it is, how comfortable she is between them. The strangest thing about it is that Alex does not seem ready to flee. 

“There was a monkey.” Astra’s voice comes from above her head, but she feels it like a rumble from the chest underneath her ear. “A most unusual and impractical pet. I must say.”

Maggie cannot help but feel she has missed something vital, the longer things go on without anyone mentioning the elephant in the room. 

“The odious one made a list.”

The absolute disdain in Astra’s voice causes Maggie to chuckle. 

“Yeah, don’t expect him to improve any time soon.”

“Got some time off.” Alex tells her. “With pay.”

She should check the time, really, see how long she has before she has to get up and get ready for work. The thought of leaving this apartment, these two women, makes her wistful all of a sudden. Maggie blinks again and is still not totally convinced she’s not asleep and dreaming. 

“I should…”

“Relax.” Alex reads her easily. “It’s only early afternoon. Nowhere near night time yet.”

So relax Maggie does, sinking into the two bodies that surround her. Her entire body feels deflated in a good way, usually held up and held together as it is by stress and tension. Like this feels like floating. 

She should feel trapped, smothered, overheated, stuck between them like this. Instead, Maggie just feels comfortable. 

“Mmm.” A small, grateful little hum. “Good.”

Almost as if in reward, Alex leans even closer and kisses her cheek. It’s soft and tentative, a cautious little gesture, testing Maggie’s reaction, but also a little too close to her mouth to be anything less than intentional. 

She freezes for a second, just a second, but desperately needing to gauge the reading of the room and the warm body underneath hers. Astra does not tense up, nor pull away, or show any signs of discomfort at all. In fact, the hand Astra does not have wrapped around Maggie’s waist comes up to cup the side of Alex’s face. An unmistakable approval. 

Then Maggie leans forward and chases Alex’s mouth for a proper kiss. This is familiar, their mouths sliding together, easily and hotly, and it feels good, too good to stop even though she knows, she _knows_ she should. 

A shift has occurred, this becomes clear. Something has changed, something has shifted between Alex and Astra, an understanding of the situation. The mutual attraction at hand and their acknowledgement of it. 

And this is Alex’s way of letting her know. 

Maggie is breathless and urgent and full of a sleepy, hazy desire. She could spend hours tasting Alex, in each and every variation that implies, yet she pulls back. There is only time for Alex to give a disappointed, querying little hum before Maggie nudges Alex’s chin upwards and to the side. 

It is clear. 

It is unmistakable. 

Not one of the three breathes for a very long second. 

And then Alex takes her cue. Maggie feels it in the hand that presses down lightly on her abdomen to bolster Alex shifting upwards. She sinks back, awed and spellbound as she watches Alex and Astra kiss just above her, so very close and yet separate. 

A storm of emotions crashes into her. She has the feeling she should be jealous, but she isn’t. She’s fascinated and humbled and turned on by the muffled sound of surprise from Astra’s throat, the murmur of agreement from Alex. 

Maggie watches Alex reach forward to place her free hand on Astra’s cheek, not a caress and more of a hold, keeping her still as Alex moves and tastes and devours. 

She still has one hand around Astra and the other down on Alex’s thigh. There’s a hand around her shoulders and one on her neck. 

There has never been a proven case of spontaneous human combustion before, but she is close to being the first. When she just can’t take it anymore, the heat, the desire, the need, there’s only one thing left to do. 

Maggie surges up and is only mildly surprised when Alex gives way automatically. Kissing Astra is different to kissing Alex. While Alex is new to liking women, she is not new to kissing or to taking and demanding what she wants once she’s decided she wants it. Alex is eager and exploratory and fresh. 

Astra, on the other hand, cares little for gender or definition, she is used to taking charge, but completely new to desire and being desired. Astra kisses gently and tentatively as if sure it will be taken away the next second, worshipful and dedicated. 

Maggie is groaning and it doesn’t help when she feels another mouth sucking hotly on her neck. 

She is not a prude. It’s the last thing anyone can accuse her of. Being shamed so fully so early on has made Maggie unabashed in her desire. She explores what she likes with whoever she likes and damn anyone who tries to make her feel bad for it. She has had experiences with aliens before and experiences with multiple partners. 

And yet this is different and she cannot say why. 

Her body shifts, the need of movement overwhelming, and she feels two more bodies shift above and below, easily accommodating. It’s like they’ve been together forever. 

She leans back with a slight pop to the seal that was her and Astra’s mouth, sucking in a huge, clarifying lungful of air. 

“Jesus.”

The mouth at her neck falls away into a burst of giggles and it takes Maggie a few seconds to realise that Alex is not laughing at the craziness of the entire situation and more at the fact that they’re all hovering about a foot off the sofa. 

When they turn their heads to look, Astra just blinks at them.

And they slowly lower back down. 

***

Astra closes her fists tightly, clenching her hands until the beginnings of her nail regrowth dig into the skin of her palm, causing her only the slightest discomfort. Then she releases. It’s the stretch of muscle, the harnessing and releasing of energy she needs. The spark of _living_ she has come to equate to Earth. 

Adrenaline, Alex had explained, a sudden surge of the Kryptonian equivalent of adrenaline.

Well, if the sudden epiphany of feelings and emotion that she’d just experienced counts as adrenaline, Astra will just have to assume that Alex is correct. 

Watching them kiss each other, Alex and Maggie, felt like home. She had seen affection many times before, had been privy to seeming private moments between her sister and husband, her sister and niece. Astra, herself, remembers many times with Kara where the love and affection she felt was insurmountable. 

She revelled in it, basked in it, glad she was able to share it with them, that she would not be excused or alienated from their warmth. 

But in all of this, Astra had forgotten one important aspect: they expected and anticipated to include her. She was not just an onlooker. She had heard the words: join us, together, three. Yet, she had been included in Alura’s family and mostly watched from afar. Included, but not particularly a participant. 

And yet Alex had kissed her, succulent mouth moving over hers in ways that Non’s never had, making her feel things Non had never even thought to try to make her feel. And it hadn’t stopped there. Maggie’s mouth had followed. 

Astra had overloaded. 

At least she has her powers back and no longer feels weak, no longer becomes dizzy if she stands up and walks for any length of time. It does not hurt her to move her arms over her head, or even to breathe. 

She is powerful and these women make her weak. 

Alex at the kitchen counter preparing a meal and Maggie brushing her hair in preparation for leaving to work.

There is an unimaginable chasm between the Astra of before and the Astra of after her death. The before-Astra would not have let herself consider these two women as companions, let alone equal partners, so cocky and sure and unthinking in her superiority. 

She remembers flying above the world and watching, but never deigning to experience, to join the humans in anything. They had kept themselves sequestered in Fort Rozz, assured in their assumption of humanity as pestilence that needed to be controlled. 

But the after-Astra is different, altered. She has felt true inferiority. Helpless and chained and at the mercy of the merciless. Astra recognises her own pride and hubris for what it was, is able now to see in ways she never was before. 

And she hates it, hates what they have done to her, how they did it… hates… 

“Hey.” Alex’s voice is soft, but firm and demanding her attention. “You okay over there?”

“It is not safe for me here.” She announces, quietly, though she knows they will both hear her. “It is not safe for you.”

When she looks up, both Alex and Maggie have stopped what they are doing.It is Alex’s eyes she avoids, all knowing and understanding and full of galling pity. 

“When they find me, they will come.”

She knows they will.

They will come with their kryptonite and restraints and medical tools, with their gags and cruelty. For the last weeks of her capture that is all they wanted: her power to return. They tried to pull it out of her any way they could and, perhaps having her strength and healing back would have made it easier, but she was always grateful that it failed to return. 

“Bullshit.” 

Maggie’s outburst comes amid a large intake of breath and Astra can feel the tirade that is about to follow, the words and anger and defense. 

“No.” But Alex interrupts calmly. Her voice is steel and allows no argument. “We said together and that means _together_. They left you for dead, Astra, let them think you’re dead.”

She is not human, not from this planet. She is stronger than any human that will cross her path. Astra has already made the mistake of hubris, of relying too much on the powers that can topple worlds without heeding the deviousness of humans, and all that got her was death and cruelty and pain. 

She is one of the strongest beings on this planet, but she does not feel like it. 

Hiding in a corner and letting other people fight her battles is alien to her, and yet she cannot summon her training, her sense of self, cannot imagine what it used to feel like to _command_ an army, when all she knows is electricity that sings through her veins and the sound of her voice screaming so hard and so long it becomes white noise. 

Images she does not want and cannot dismiss invade her brain: Alex on that table, with those instruments; the sound of Maggie pleading. 

“I will not put you in danger.” She insists. “I will not give you to them.”

She is prepared for a fight. She is not prepared for Alex to stride forward, one step after another, face warping. 

“So, you’ll make me do it?” It is anger, hot and overwhelming. “Give you back? Fuck you, Astra, I am not going to kill you again!”

The words slam into the room, harsh and unforgiving. Astra has not thought about her death, at least to the degree that Alex obviously has. 

Astra sees nothing personal in what happened. Two soldiers on either sides of battle. Alex was the victor, but that makes little difference; they were both doing their jobs and both would have been equally justified in the act. 

It is obviously something that weighs heavier on Alex’s mind than it has ever occurred to Astra. 

The impact of this stuns her a little, but not as much as the pain in Alex’s eyes or the way she holds herself still, trying to hide the shaking of her hands as Astra stands to meet her.

“I am not wor…”

But Maggie jumps in, coming to stand between them both, her hands out as if to hold them back. And Astra has been too focused and intrigued and puzzled by Alex’s depth of feeling to realise exactly how they’ve come to stand, a face to face showdown. 

“Astra, goddammit, if you finish that sentence I will punch you myself, powers or no.” She turns. “And Alex, no one blames you for that, okay? Nobody is giving anyone to Cadmus, so let’s all calm down.” 

Maggie is in the middle of an argument that nobody is fighting. Astra never blamed Alex, Alex has always been the first to defend Astra since she woke up. There are tensions, but they are all personal ones, inner demons that create conflict where there should be none. 

“I don’t blame you.” Astra says finally, giving Alex the only thing she can in that moment. “I never have.”

And Alex’s chin wobbles. 

Slightly. 

So slightly it might not have been seen, but she has her powers back

Damn these feelings, damn them all to the furthest reaches of the phantom zone. It was so much easier before she cared. Before she entered this apartment, before she woke up to these two and the possibilities they carried, she would have fled at the first sign of discomfort. 

Maggie humphs between them. 

“Do you think we can eat without World War Three before I have to leave for work?”

***

end chapter five.


End file.
